About BUILDing SCHOLARS Center

Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity:
Southwest Consortium of Health-Oriented Education Leaders and Research Scholars

BUILDing SCHOLARS is a center of excellence established at The University of Texas at El Paso with support from the National Institutes of Health - Common Fund.

Our goal for the second and last cycle is to continue implementing the programs and activities that are positively transforming the training of the next generation of biomedical researchers from U.S. Southwest groups through a multi-institution consortium in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, as well as three extra-regional sites.

As part of the three-pronged Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce Consortium, we work closely with the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), centralized at Boston College, to enhance the training and career development of our students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty. We also work closely with the Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to evaluate the efficacy of the training and mentoring approaches.

The Center’s programs and activities focus on three key areas:

• Student development
• Faculty development
• Institutional development

It provides a large number of student scholarships per year

Each year, the Center provides award recipients with partial scholarships, covering 60% of tuition of a full 15 credit hour load, as well as a monthly stipend. Those receiving scholarships as freshmen may qualify for four years of support based on adherence to the Center’s requirements.

Several scholarships are reserved for students with sophomore, junior, or transfer status at the start of the program. The latter may qualify to receive support for two and three years, respectively, based on adherence to the Center’s requirements.

Click here for more information regarding scholarship criteria and eligibility.

It’s for all students—not only those on scholarships

Any student interested in becoming researchers in the biomedical, social, behavior or health sciences or biomedical engineering fields can benefit from the Center. They are encouraged to enroll in the same research foundation and research-driven courses, participate in the mentor training activities and attend presentations/seminars.

Our activities have a transdisciplinary emphasis through research nodes, which involve sociology, psychology, biomedical, mechanical, and electrical/computer engineering and health sciences, as well as the traditional sciences: chemistry, biochemistry, biology, mathematics and physics. Students majoring in any of those disciplines are invited to apply for the scholarship and participate in the student programs.

A major focus is on early interventions, which take place during the freshman and sophomore years, through the research foundations and research-driven courses.

The Center also integrates technology and high-impact educational practices such as the use of Student-Centered Active Learning Environments for Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) to:
1) enhance student training through face-to-face, virtual and blended approaches and 2) promote student-student, faculty-student and faculty-faculty connectivity to faculty and students from pipeline and research partner institutions.

We emphasize a scaffolded training approach through a research-driven curriculum and strong mentoring program, which integrate students into a community of practice that will develop and expand their professional network.

The Center supports the development of participating faculty and postdoctoral personnel through curriculum development, mini-sabbaticals, and mentor training programs.